1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to a machine for meat maceration and treatment which includes automatic loading and unloading, more particularly to a machine for the preparation of different meat products in the pork butchering industry and for all those applications where a previous maceration and treatment is required, with or without product temperature regulation, whatever its origin or source might be.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
Previously-known machines of this type, with a rotating drum for meat treatment, are shown in Spanish Pat. Nos. 406,947 for a machine for meat treatment and maceration by a system, which proposes the possibility of alternative stages of vacuum and pressure in the treatment chamber, 435,711 for improvements in machines to macerate and treat meat concerning the integration in the chamber wall of some means for temperature regulation, and 545,242 for improvements in a machine to treat and macerate meats by a pressure system in which are disclosed some improvements in receptacles and the inner wall of the drum, as well as some security means associate with tight closing of the door to generate a depressurizing of the chamber simultaneously with its opening.
Other previous machines, though less pertinent to the machine of this invention by the fact that they do not use for treatment a basic unit referred to as a drum, but in fact include the possibility of automatic loading and unloading, are disclosed in the Italian Pat. Nos. 1,036,702 for a mixing device for even diffusion of brine in the meat, and 1,068,610 for improvements in mixing devices for even diffusion of brine in the meat of Mr. Luigi Menozzi, and 1,028,808 for method and devices for meat treatment, in particular ham meat of the company H. J. LANGEN E. ZONEN B.V., which is also the holder of the Spanish Pat. No. 502,024 for a device to handle pieces of meat, for example to knead or mix the. Such patents disclose some tanks that are driven around a treatment unit, which has available another half-tank, fit to be coupled with a tight closing at the hood inlet forming a single receptacle which is made rotating or revolving around a spin axis associated with the half-tank linked to the treatment unit. Because of the coupling features of the two half-tanks, it is not feasible to foresee in these systems the realization inside the working chamber of significant pressure cycles, as in the treatment drum of the machine of the invention, because the stress generated would not be compatible with stable association of the half-tanks. Neither are there foreseen in these machines open receptacles with the possibility of an alternate striking or soft massage corresponding to one sense of rotation or the other.